252 comments

The Met will commemorate the bicentennials of Verdi and Wagner with two
exclusive box sets of historic Met performances, released by Sony
Classical. Each set will feature legendary performances from the Met’s
archives, most never before officially released and all newly restored and
mastered from the original sources. *Wagner at the Met, *a 25-CD set, will
be released in April 2013 and feature*Götterdämmerung *starring Lauritz
Melchior and Marjorie Lawrence (1936); Melchior and Kirsten Flagstad in*Die
Walküre *(1940), *Siegfried *(1937), and *Tristan und Isolde *(1938);*
Lohengrin *with Melchior and Astrid Varnay (1943); *Der Fliegende
Holländer *with Hans Hotter and Varnay (1950); *Das Rheingold *with Hotter
(1951); *Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg *with Paul Schöffler and Victoria
de los Angeles (1953); and*Tannhäuser *with Ramón Vinay, Margaret Harshaw,
Varnay, George London, and Jerome Hines (1954). Conductors featured in the
set include Artur Bodanzky, Erich Leinsdorf, Fritz Reiner, Fritz Stiedry,
and George Szell. ****

This fall, Sony Classical will release *Verdi at the Met*, a 20-CD set of
10 previously unreleased and newly restored Verdi operas. This set will
include Zinka Milanov and Jussi Björling in *Un Ballo in Maschera*(1940);
Björling, Bidú Sayão, and Leonard Warren in *Rigoletto *(1945); Fritz
Reiner conducting Warren in the title role of *Falstaff *(1949); Warren,
Astrid Varnay, and Richard Tucker in *Simon Boccanegra *(1950); Milanov,
Tucker, and Warren in *La Forza del Destino *(1952); Renata Tebaldi in *La
Traviata *(1957); Mario Del Monaco, Victoria de los Angeles, and Warren in *
Otello *(1958); Erich Leinsdorf conducting Leonie Rysanek and Warren in *
Macbeth *(1959); Rysanek and Cornell MacNeil in *Nabucco *(1960); and
Leontyne Price, Grace Bumbry, Carlo Bergonzi, and Robert Merrill in *Aida *